hello, this is kind of a large question and i would appreciate if any one who answered it could be as specific as possible.

I'm a freshman college student and for my job my boss asked me to make a small motor array made up of 24 servos. For this project i need to be able to control each motor individually (via a laptop of something along those lines) and make them turn both forward and backwards. Also, i want them to only rotate at about one revolution a second or less, and i want to try and keep the prices relatively low even though i do realize that this will cost probably a couple hundred dollars. I was thinking that i would need an h bridge, an arduino micro controller, servos, wires, and some batteries. Unfortunately, i don't have a whole lot of experience with this kind of thing and i realize i probably don't know of all of the things i will need. Also, I'm not exactly sure How many motors i can hook up to an arduino micro controller and h bridge or even if i necessarily need the h bridge.

I would really appreciate it if someone could give me a list of good products to buy to build this array at an affordable price( and the quantity of each part) while also helping me determine how best to set this up.

(shortened version: i need to control 24 servos individually and wirelessly while having the ability to adjust the speed of rotation forward and backward and i need a list of components that i will need and preferably some info on good products, vendors, and manufacturers)Also, i need to waterproof it but i feel like that's something I'll have to do separately.

Do you really mean servos, they usually only rotate 180 degrees ?Do you need full rotation or just, less than 180 degrees back and forth movement?

H bridges are usually used for DC motors not for servos. If what you really need is DC motors you will need geared motors to get 1 RPS, an you will need one H bridge for each motor if you need individual control over speed and direction. Geared motors that go down to 1RPS = $$$

Do you need individual speed/direction control over the 24 motors?

Wireless control over what distance ?

When you say "waterproof it", will it be submerged?, because that will have an influence on wireless options.

Have you considered your powersupply needs?, if what you really need is DC motors, you are going to need a beefy powersupply to run 24 of them.

Go back to your boss and find out what this thing is in tended to do. At the moment your trying to get us to help you implement a solution (24 motors with Wifi).

My first pass at a design to do this is 6 Uno's linked using the built in I2C with each Uno controlling two dual motor controller shields (4 motors). One of the Uno would be the master and would have a wireless/SD or XBee shield with a WiFly bug used in place of an XBee.

so if I where to give your boss a quote for the hardware it would look something like

I do know all of the specifics of the project that i should be able to answer any specific questions as you're trying to help me.

so the array is going to be placed in an high grade incubator(due to really high humidity water accumulates on the parts) meant for cell cultures and things like that. So it has to be able to transmit through a metal housing but past that only about 5 feet

Also, as i said before i need it to be able to rotate really slowly while being easily controlled. These motors have to be very small (servo was the only thing i could find that was small enough but a dc motor that size would be fine.) these motors will be rotating a rod with a ball bearing at the end in order to roll along a prefabricated rail and all 24 motors will be going along their own rail,i only need to to be able to maybe turn somewhere around 720 degrees in either direction since the rails are pretty short. This is the reason why i need pretty precise control over the motors and also why i have to be able to control each one individually otherwise they would shoot off the rails.

Also, i was wondering how many motors i could hook up to an arduino, i saw one guy do 10 by using a breadboard somehow and i think minimizing the number of arduinos could help cut back on costs.

As you can see i don't really now a whole lot about servos and motors but i thought i would have to just wire some batteries in there to help run it.

That 32 servo controller also looks like it could be a great help if it turns out that i can use servos thanks.

jroorda, that seems to be exactly what i will need for the servos thanks I think SpringRC SM-S4303R Continuous Rotation Servo looks good.

also, going back to holmes4 it is 24 servos because they will be moving eight different objects in an xyz area using the aforementioned rails therefore with the basic design i need 3 motors per object, one for each axis of movement. I could use less servos but my boss wants each object to be modular so he could add more if he wanted so i can't use less motors for the sake of efficiency.

When using this array i only need to be able to control one servo at a time when it comes to the power so that shouldn't be much of a concern.

Going back to the transmitting out of the incubator it looks something like this though I'm not sure of the exact model (http://www.priceit.in/instruments/co2-incubator-price-features-reviews/) what are your thoughts as to getting the controls from the array in the incubator to the laptop outside 5 feet away. Holmes4 you said something about a Faraday cage and I'm wondering if this would pose a large problem or if i could get around it.

Also, to review it looks like I'll need 24 servos, 1 of those 32 channel servo controllers, an arduino, the wireless thingamajigs. Also, do i need any h bridges for these or is that only for dc motors. also do you think a breadboard might help out as I'm building this thing.

Holmes4 you said something about a Faraday cage and I'm wondering if this would pose a large problem or if i could get around it.

A metal box stops radio waves in your case you can deal with the problem by take the wirs from the motors through as hole in he case to the control electronic outside the metal case. Then seal the hole (think grommets/or even putty).

You can make a "faraday cage" from tin foil. Try wrapping your phone in tin foil and have some one try calling you.

Instead of saying that you want to move the shelf in all 3 axis find out what patten of movement is required. You may be able to use just 1 motor and a cam or two.

well now that we got most of the motor related things figured out, what exactly do i need to wirelessly send signals back and forth from a laptop to an arduino? Also, if anyone knows of a video on how to hook that kind of thing up I'd really appreciate a link.